Thank you very much for the reviews, sorry for the wait.

Chapter 9: Strong yet kind

Tsuna stared at the wooden mansion, which had two floors. At the first one, there was a large door between two big windows covered, by the inside, by curtains. At the second floor, it could be seen three small windows, also covered.

Boris was scared of getting too close to the place, so he stayed at the beginning of the street, hid behind some shrubs. He had promised to Sawada Tsunayoshi that if the Decimo didn't return in one hour, he would contact Reborn.

What Boris and Tsuna hadn't realized was that they were already under the effect of Catharina's power.

They weren't sleeping, they really were near the mansion, but the girl was able to trick their sense of time.

Both of them had left Tsuna's home late at night and took 20 minutes to reach the place. However, Catharina didn't want to meet Tsuna yet, since she had prepared something for later to both the Great Sky and his Storm. So, Catharina made time pass very slowly to her brother's and Tsunayoshi's senses. While Tsuna thought he had been staring at the mansion for three minutes and Boris thought he was hid for two minutes, actually several hours had passed since their arrival.

A truly frightening ability she had.

Something isn't right. Tsuna felt suddenly and decided to enter the mansion immediately. The moment he passed through the door and closed it, Catharina stopped her ability over him. Because of the windows closed by the curtains, Tsuna believed it was still night outside. The mansion was dark and the Tenth could hear the sound of water dripping coming from another room; he concluded that it should be coming from the mansion's kitchen's faucet, probably broken. At his every move, the wooden floor would crack. Tsuna looked around and noticed that the living room didn't have any furniture. At his front there were stairs.

She must be up there, waiting for me. Was Tsuna scared? Yes. But he was determinate to do something. Even if he was Dame Tsuna almost the entire time, he just couldn't avoid feeling sad over the situation of the twins. If something like that happened to me…

Reaching the second floor, Tsuna saw an opened door at the end of the hall. He passed through it and entered a large room. The only light inside it was coming from a candle over a coffee table between two large armchairs. In one of them, Catharina was sitting.

Tsuna approached her slowly, she seemed gloomy, maybe because of the dark blue lace dress she was wearing. She looked at Tsuna coldly and said '"sit."

Tsuna did so and sat on the other armchair. She's different from the other time.

Catharina smirked lightly, for Tsuna's surprise.

"And so the Great Sky of Vongola Famiglia came to save me. Aren't you scared of me anymore?"

Tsuna studied the girl. Something has changed. Why does she seem so fragile to me now? I didn't have this feeling before.

"My stupid and coward brother made you come right to the tiger's mouth, expecting that you could get rid of me, how silly."

"That's not true!" Tsuna protested. "Boris-san wants you to be like you were before…"

"Before Father tried to kill me?" Catharina questioned, emotionlessly. "You're so naïve, Great Sky. Boris is not concerned about me or anything."

"Of course he is!" Tsuna protested again. "He's your brother!"

Catharina laughed wildly, scaring Tsuna a bit. Then, she calmed herself and spoke bitterly:

"My father was always so kind to me. When I was little, I remember I saw a beautiful doll in a lace dress in a store; Father told me that he'd give me one someday… we were not rich, so he couldn't ever give me one. I didn't care though. I already had that strong and kind man taking care of me, my brother and Mother. I was happy enough."

"…" Tsuna couldn't reply anything.

"What? Am I already making you feel sad, Great Sky? Are you trying to imagine what I felt when that person that I loved so deeply tried to kill me? It's obvious that I was scared… but do you know what was funny?"

Tsuna was feeling anxious as the bitterness in Catharina's voice increased exponentially as she kept talking.

"That strong and big man was the most scared of us. He was trembling in fear of me. I hadn't realized it at that moment… I felt guilty and confused after I made him step away; but when I told Boris what had happened and I saw the same fear in his eyes… I understood everything."

"It doesn't have to be like that." Tsuna said, sadly.

"So you already got it? I'm strong, Great Sky. I'm stronger than most people can conceive. It's inevitable that I'll be feared by others. As long as everybody is weaker than me, everybody will fear me… and I'll despise all of them. But now I'm a little relieved."

"Why?"

"When I saw you for the first time, you were with your right-hand man. I noticed right away your eyes. You looked at him so kindly and sweetly. I asked myself if Vongola Decimo could really have eyes like those, so I tested you. You didn't have your mind destroyed by my power… and now you're in front of me in free will trying to help me. You're strong, Great Sky, and yet you're kind. You're strong enough to walk by my side. I want you to be mine. I want your eyes to look at me like they look at Gokudera Hayato."

Tsuna blushed lightly at the mention of Gokudera-kun, regaining his focus right after.

"You're mistaken. You don't need someone as strong as you by your side. Give a chance to your brother, he'll show you-"

"You don't understand yet the burden of being chained to the weak. Gokudera Hayato is so much weaker than you. He's a burden that will soon cause you a lot of pain."

"Don't talk like that about Gokudera-kun!" Tsuna was now angered. "He's intelligent, brave, dedicated, hard-worker, loyal and very strong!"

"Really?" Catharina questioned, meanly. "What do you think of his mental strength?"

"What do you mean?"

"It's probably 8:30 or 8:40 now. It's already done."

"What is done?" Tsuna asked urgently, having a bad feeling.

"I'm able to mess with people's senses, including the sense of time. I can make hours feel like minutes or the other way around; I can also make a certain person enter this mansion without being noticed by my foolish brother… and make horrible things to this person, break his soul mercilessly, without letting you notice it."

Tsuna's eyes were wide in pure horror. Catharina smiled serenely and said:

"The Storm is in the kitchen downstairs now. Why don't you go check how is your strong and brave Gokudera-kun?"

Sorry for the short chapter (it's already late, and I don't want to write what happened to Gokudera when I'm sleepy – it'sad). I promise that I won't take too much time to write the next one. :)